19 of our Investigators have been successful across 12 Marsden projects

6 November, 2025

This year 19 of our Investigators have been successful across 12 Marsden projects:

University of Auckland Marsden projects led by MacDiarmid Institute Investigators:

Dr Ziyun Wang is leading ‘Producing Green Ammonia from Air and Water at Ambient Conditions Using Plasma and Renewable Electricity’ along with Dr Prasanth Gupta (Earth Sciences NZ) and Professor Geoff Waterhouse (University of Auckland).

Professor Nicola Gaston is leading ‘More than skin deep: understanding the native oxide of gallium’ along with Associate Professor Franck Natali and Dr Charlie Ruffman (both Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington) as well as former MacDiarmid Institute Investigator Krista Steenbergen.

Dr Shanghai Wei is leading ‘Mechanistic Insights into High-Performance Sustainable Batteries' along with Professor Aaron Marshall (University of Canterbury) and Professor Tilo Söhnel (University of Auckland).

Te Herenga Waka Victoria University project led by a MacDiarmid Institute Investigator:

Dr Mat Anker leads 'The Next Generation of High-Density Data Storage Materials for Data Centres'.

And alumnus Yao Zhang, previously supervised by Dr Simon Granville and now a scientist at Paihau-Robinson Research Institute, received a Fast Start for 'Building Faster, Smaller, and Energy-efficient Memory for the Global Explosion of Data'.

Many of these Marsden projects are aligned with the research programmes of the Institute, and correspond particularly closely to the work of Catalytic Architectures and Future Computing research. Congratulations to everyone involved.
Professor Nicola Gaston MacDiarmid Institute Director

Earth Sciences New Zealand Marsden projects led by MacDiarmid Institute Investigators:

Dr Pransanth Gupta is leading ‘Developing a New Zealand catalyst to produce green ammonia from air, water, and renewable electricity' along with Dr John Kennedy (also Earth Sciences NZ).

Dr John Kennedy is also leading ‘Unlocking Waste Heat: Advancing Thermomagnetic Generators for Sustainable Energy’ along with Dr Simon Granville (Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington).

University of Otago-led Marsden project led by a MacDiarmid Institute Investigator:

Dr Courtney Ennis is leading 'Could New Zealand's offshore energy source have played a role in the origin of life?'.

Other MacDiarmid Institute Investigators involved in successful Marsdens this year:

Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington-based Professor Michele Governale and Professor Uli Zuelicke are part of a Massey University-led project ‘Exploring hidden patterns in the coldest matter in the universe’.

University of Otago-based Professor Keith Gordon is part of a project ‘Archaeological preservation of Māori rock art including wider knowledge building and tourism opportunities’.

Massey-based Associate Professor Pauline Harris is part of a University of Auckland led project ‘Interstellar Asteroids, Black Holes and the Big Bang’.

Massey University-based Professor Geoff Jameson is part of a Massey University-led project 'Innovative shape-shifting drugs to fight drug resistance in cancer'.

And University of Canterbury-based Dr Ciaran Moore is part of a University of Auckland led project 'Light Signals: A New Communication System for Monitoring New Zealand's Remote Environments and Enhancing Safety.'

You can see the full list of funded projects here.

It’s great to see the projects applying new physics and chemistry approaches to develop the materials and devices for tomorrow’s advanced conventional and quantum computers
Dr Simon Granville Future Computing Programme Leader